Violet+McCormick

On April 23, 1920, 30-year-old homemaker Violet McCormick died at the practice of an abortionist named Achtenberg, leaving behind three children ages 12, 9, and 6.

From information about other Chicago area abortion deaths, we can gather that the abortionist in question was Dr. Louise Achtenberg, who had already been implicated in the abortion deaths of Dora Swan in 1907 and Florence Wright in 1909.

After Violet's death, Achtenberg was held by the coroner and tried, but acquitted, freeing her to cause the 1924 death of Madelyn Anderson.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

 Source: [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive]

include component="tagCloud"